(We really need to change the "Spoiler Tag" to the Quote+Black Text Colour... I had reading a paragraph in a marquee).

He is cool, but I still think he gets too much love, mainly because his motives for saving Yeul, and extraordinarily bland character to begin with and completely irrelevant to the series till 13-2 and it's "new-fiction" (i.e.; switching from Fal'cie centered plot to a Time Travel one) is stupid. IF maybe he had a daughter that was born as a "Yeul", it'd make a bit more sense, but she is otherwise just a tragic lass. Yeul does suffer a tragic fate, but none so stupid to destroy time and order and everything else for her sake (in effect wiping even them two from it).

I think Serah's absolutely impossibly styled hair is what gets me the most. The mullet out back, curls on the side, and the most bizarre blend of real-life-anime bangs in front. o_<But, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, at least JRPGs like giving long hair to their characters... Mass Effect gave you a choice of buzzcut, man-do, or short bob.

But (and I can't believe I'm defending it from a character point of view) one of the big issues is Caius has been the guardian for how long now? Going further, how long has he been trying to change things? Going even further, how long has he seen events that have happened that now have unhappened and so on/so forth? It's like living hell. Lock a man in a room and make him watch a terrible moment for a year straight. i bet if you put a gun with one bullet next to him, he will shoot himself. Only in Caius' case, he doesn't get that option.

(I'm not sure if this next part is spoilers or not, as it's not really a major plot twist, but if you haven't looked into ffxiii-2 at all you wouldn't know about it, so I spaced it out just in case.)

Caius' only other option was to let Noel beat him, inherit his horror, and cease his own existence. In all fairness, this option solves nothing, Noel would eventually become Caius and the cycle would renew itself. Not for nothing, what's stopping the goddess who created all of this from ending it? Why couldn't she end his curse, or Yeul's for that matter? She's no better than the fal'cie for not thinking humans could handle shit alone, they needed a cheater to see what would happen. Hell, what if the big plot buster here is Caius is really Noel? For all we know, the man has been time travelling for a while now, and they never mention his mentor.

(my god I could write this shit for the next ff game, it beats there horse crap plot otherwise.)

I think Serah's absolutely impossibly styled hair is what gets me the most. The mullet out back, curls on the side, and the most bizarre blend of real-life-anime bangs in front. o_<But, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, at least JRPGs like giving long hair to their characters... Mass Effect gave you a choice of buzzcut, man-do, or short bob.

That reminded me how much I still like the hairstyle of Ashley Riot. :p

Eugh.... Don't remind me. The inner-me goes "WTF WERE THEY THINKING????" every time I see it.

And Agent. Again, even if it is a good plot, it's ruined by a dull and genuinely void character (aside from the one smiley one seen in The Dying World [Noel's flashback]). If they expanded on her character beyond the "weird prophetic child", then I'd get it. The only part that really shined was Caius' words (and only worlds) on how one Yeul liked to sing, one liked to collect flowers, and so on. But other than that..?

The game could have befitted from a real flash back than just a talked about past. Because I just didn't bite into it by the end.

I had a whole post written out, but your most recent post changes things.

I guess my problem is that no sane, caring person would ever choose to destroy the world. To make that kind of psychopathic leap, one would have to loose all respect for all humanity... as a true psychopath who has no ability to care for people. Yet we see that Caius truly does care about people, he still cares about Yeul. So it's hard to believe that he's truly snapped. I like the idea behind a villain who isn't a psychopath. Basically every other FF villain is, none of them care about anything other then themselves, and it gets boring. But to make a villain who hasn't lost the ability to sympathize, it's just impossible to believe that they're capable of destroying everything. Therefor, I see Caius as a paradox: his motives don't match up with his emotions. There's a narrative disconnect there that I believe the writers fell apart on. If you're a writer and you want to create a villain who feels sympathy, you're going to have to let go of having him try to destroy the world. It just doesn't work. It feels completely forced and ill constructed.

That said, I'd like to say that I liked Caius's character, but he's a completely broken architype, so I don't know if I'm able to understand his character well enough to say whether I like him or not.

If only the writers hadn't made him trying to destroy EVERYTHING, they could have made it work. Rebuild the world anew, that would at least make some sort of sense. Maybe having to sacrifice a group of people because they stand in the way of a "cured" world, I can totally buy that. But the same person who truly cares for another human could not possibly destroy everyone and everything.

I'm really sick of the FF writers feeling like they have to destroy the world every game. And this time, it really causes some discontinuities in the narrative. Ya know, the world doesn't need to be destroyed to have an intense and gripping plot and villains. If they had aimed smaller and more personal, this all would have worked really well.

Prime: the def sounds like a better plot tangent, and probably what the writers would have thought up the the story wasn't so rushed. They probably could have made more sense of the plot if they had more time as well -- there is really no other excuse, other than drugs, for a well known series to produce such poor plot.

But you missed something. He isn't trying to destroy everything. In his current time, everything is destroyed. The time hopping is supposed to be what is killing the yeuls, as it keeps changing time and as a consequence, forces yeul to re-see events, which is the cause of her deaths. Maybe I'm overanalyzing (thanks squeenix), but if you look at it that way, it becomes a vicious cycle. Caius' response to it may be the only answer he can find. I guess it will take another story to clarify it, but it looks like it's either he lives forever with yeul dying, or he lives forever by himself. As for dice, i don't think Caius is boring. He reminds me of Kenshiro of Fist of the North Star. Quiet, stoic, obviously somber, and knows the name of only one woman. Yeul, Yuria, coincedence?

(We really need to change the "Spoiler Tag" to the Quote+Black Text Colour... I hate reading a paragraph in a marquee).

He is cool, but I still think he gets too much love, mainly because his motives for saving Yeul, and extraordinarily bland character to begin with and completely irrelevant to the series till 13-2 and it's "new-fiction" (i.e.; switching from Fal'cie centered plot to a Time Travel one) is stupid. IF maybe he had a daughter that was born as a "Yeul", it'd make a bit more sense, but she is otherwise just a tragic lass. Yeul does suffer a tragic fate, but none so stupid to destroy time and order and everything else for her sake (in effect wiping even them two from it).

I think Serah's absolutely impossibly styled hair is what gets me the most. The mullet out back, curls on the side, and the most bizarre blend of real-life-anime bangs in front. o_<But, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, at least JRPGs like giving long hair to their characters... Mass Effect gave you a choice of buzzcut, man-do, or short bob.

Caius sees Yeul in the same way Noel sees Serah, who becomes the next cursed seeress. The Paradox ending with Noel'sbattle explains this. You may not know Yeul, but you do know Serah. Now imagine Serah sharing that same fate and how Noelwould react to it. He would eventually get angry, break down, possibly become desperate or lose himself.

Also, the line about the flowers and singing was his best line in the game.

I am at...120 Fragments I think. Doing the trivia game was NOT worth real effort and I found a FAQ for it (there are some seriously stupid questions (what does Mog want to buy?? How the fuck should I know and why should I care?).

The Oerba fragments sucked, mainly for the Clock Puzzle, but Bresha is giving me a lot more hell for being a relatively big area with enemies absolutely everywhere.

For some reason I keep playing, I don't know why. I would love word on how they're going to finish the game with the ending being what it is. I guess getting the fragments was much more fun than I thought it would be. Funny, you can hate the story so much, but still be curious about "what's next". x)

I also hope (eugh, I hate saying that word in a FF13 topic) they give you a chance to choose Noel or Snow in the end. A game would allow it if it was a guy choosing between two girls!! The inner girl in me is totally siding for the handsome stranger over dick-faced asshole Snow (the Paradox ending he was in was so, so dumb and served as fodder for why he's pretty unlikeable and narrow -- if he and Serah do stay together, I'd contribute that to a downer ending point).

Has anyone else done in-depth Monster Raising??? I think the heart I have for this game will be over to go that far into it -- that shit is waaay to complicated and time consuming between gathering monsters, their materials, then fusing, then gathering, then again..... Yomi is giving me a hard time, so it's nice to have a monster worth building towards to gun down later.

A few other notes...- Pat is seriously the weirdest looking NPC ever- Lame; the splashing "effect" in the marshes looks like it took less than a minute to implement and really annoys me as a visual nit-pick (especially when everything else is so fantastic).- Syn > Sab most of the time... these two classes are really annoying to build, emphasized by the fact I don't see why I'd want to waste a whole monster slot on one.- Are non-Potent items ever really worth it?? I mean, a SEN and HP are clearly important, but it seems like it'd be more effective to at least get 2/3 bonuses for a munster (say for example, HP/MAG for a RAV) even if the remaining 1/3 (ATK) doesn't matter.- Alyssa's head bothers me- Hope could potentially be Time Man of the Year many, many times. And this isn't a pun on the fact he skips through the timeline, but the fact that he's genius otherwise... wouldn't mind him coming back with a bigger role in 13-3[?]- The music in dying world is fucking terrible.... sorry Kokia. Honestly, a lot of the lyrical stuff is kind of annoying and I think is a key factor to why some tunes feel repetitive.- Did NPCs who give missions and just have no interesting bullshit to say REALLY have to share the same little TALK icon??

I feel it's a great song, but Kokia's performance is rather lackluster. She needs to enunciate more or she shouldn't be singing in English.

I like other version of Noel's Theme, and the Dying World one just sans the vocals (doesn't help you're walking around an enemy filled place that is seriously 3x bigger than it has to be). This version makes her sound bored, and while she is an exquisite vocalist, it doesn't translate well to English.

Anyhow. LOVE the White Mage outfit. It's not violently pink and the details are quite lovely. I *think* I like the black mage one... but I think it's the Pajama leg that sorta bothers me (and the "evil moogle" is serious nightmare fuel).

I'm curious about the Lightning chapter. I'm guessing that'll be the last of it after?? Hopefully we get some hint about the ending haps.

PS: As much as people bitched about it, I adore the fact there is a rockin' red chocobo that plays metal music when you ride it. x) It's stupid, but it's in good humour.

So I take it Snow's dlc will revolve around moogles. I approve, being that he is a tool in himself, he should be around the secondary mascots of the ffuniverse. With any luck, he'll be transformed into a moogle too.

I'm curious about the Lightning chapter. I'm guessing that'll be the last of it after?? Hopefully we get some hint about the ending haps.

PS: As much as people bitched about it, I adore the fact there is a rockin' red chocobo that plays metal music when you ride it. x) It's stupid, but it's in good humour.

I believe that Snow's DLC is going to be released after Lightnings. At least, it was announced a lot later, but maybe they wanted to get the hype train going for Lightning's, far ahead of time. Doesn't sound like Lightning's DLC will close out the story, so at this point, it's really hard to imagine that they wont do 13-3. But obviously, they aren't going to announce it until they've milked all the DLC that they're going to do.